The Longest Goodbye, Chapter THREE—

"i'm all ears"

Watching Jeremiah stack book upon book in Steven's arms so that he created a pile that reached over the top of his head was admittedly impressive, but it did nothing to dispel the great boredom that had overtaken Annie all evening.

She had initially been excited to attend Laurel's book party—or whatever this was—for many reasons. The most appealing of them was how much Annie enjoyed reading to begin with; of course she would have loved to spend the evening in the downtown Cousins bookstore where her mother had purchased Annie's first copy of Little Women. Secondly it was impressive that Laurel was the name of the party; she was the author which everyone who attended was wanting to see! And thirdly—less important than the others, but still notable—it meant she got to spend a whole evening playing around the bookstore with Belly, flipping to random pages of random books and betting whether they would hold steamy scenes, then giggling at them together when they did.

Unfortunately for Annie, Belly had other things to attend to. Namely—a date. With a boy. Cam Cameron, as Conrad disclosed to the others, in the car on the way to the book signing. She had met this Cam Cameron (which, Annie was inclined to believe, was not his real name) at the bonfire the other night, and apparently they had been talking nonstop ever since. Annie remembered her slipping out of the debutante dinner earlier to chase down a curly-headed boy; dots began to connect in her mind that this was likely Cam Cameron.

Anyway, whoever she may have been with, Belly was not at the book signing party of her own mother; this left Annie alone with the boys for the evening in a dim-lit, wine-scented, prestigious bookstore, and furthermore to watching Jeremiah stack books in Steven's arms to see how high they could go. Soon enough, Annie thought, the stack would reach too high for Jeremiah to reach; therefore she thought they would soon expand their prospects to putting him on a chair so he could keep going.

She drifted away from the boys as soon as Jeremiah excitedly rushed to pull a chair towards Steven and grabbed another handful of books to continue stacking.

There was not a single guest at this party that Annie knew. At least, none that she wanted to speak to. She recognized a few of Laurel's pals from back home, maybe, and a somewhat-famous fellow author who was focused less on reading Laurel's book and more focused on speaking to the woman herself. Annie watched them closely, curiously, from her spot in the east corner of the store; she was sandwiched between the young adults fantasy section and the mystery section. After not much deliberation she decided to pull a book from the fantasy shelf and give it a leaf-through; she knew if Belly were here, the two of them would be placing bets on what body party would be where by this time, but instead Annie dolefully read the back cover summary alone. Nothing about it piqued her interest much.

What did spark her curiosity was Laurel calling Conrad to her signing table. Annie looked up from her book and followed Laurel's gaze to find Conrad, still at the front of the store, by the refreshments; he had a heavy glass of wine in his hand and seemed to have just knocked it back when Laurel called for him.

Annie followed Conrad with her eyes as he made his way smoothly toward Laurel and the other author, with gray hair and tortoiseshell glasses—he seemed to be the most textbook "author" that Annie had ever seen. Laurel exchanged a few brisk words with Conrad and the other man; the other man seemed delighted upon Conrad's approach; he reached into his pocket and drew from his wallet a business card.

Annie furrowed her brow. What was so impressive about Conrad Fisher that this man—who she knew to be a well-accomplished author—was immediately extending an offer to?

She watched as Conrad nodded appreciatively toward the man, tucked the card into his pocket, and left the conversation as briskly as he had entered it, ready to head back to his spot by the wine glasses. On his way back, his eyes skimmed the store, and Annie, who must not have wiped the curiosity from her face in time, caught his interest now. Her eyes flickered to the pocket where he had tucked the business card, then away, back to the book in her hands, but it was too late and Conrad was too buzzed to ignore it.

"Didn't peg you for the nosy type," he told her, raising his voice slightly so she could hear him across the room.

Annie straightened up and shook her head at the same time, ignoring him as much as she could—simultaneously ignoring the eyes that had glanced over curiously at his callout. But she could see in the corner of her eyes that he was not done with her yet and, with a new glass of wine in his hand, was on his way over to her.

"If you want to know, just ask," he continued, and surprisingly his tone of voice was very even. Annie suddenly got the impression that Conrad was good at drinking—and that nothing coming out of his mouth weren't sober words.

"You were standing in the middle of the store talking to someone famous," she replied, skimming her eyes down a page of the book she hadn't been paying attention to whatsoever. "It wasn't exactly discrete."

He gave a small humorless smile. "Glad I could entertain. What are you reading?"

She glanced up at him, then back at the book, even though both of them knew she wasn't reading it. "What does he want with you anyway? Heard he's a relatively well-known guy."

Conrad shrugged, sipping from his cup. "Apparently being good at boats gets you places now."

Finally she looked up from her book for good, giving him a skeptical look, her eyes narrowing and brow furrowing. She was surprised to see how close he had gotten to her without her noticing. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"You're being weird about it."

"You're being weird about watching me be weird about it," he replied.

She paused, caught off guard, then rolled her eyes. "I'm not watching you."

He looked down at her book. "Page thirty-seven. Same one since twenty minutes ago."

Annie flushed. She slammed it shut, maybe a little louder than necessary, and muttered, "Now who's watching people, dick?"

Conrad just gave a small shrug. "She thinks I should be doing something with myself," he said, replying to her earlier question without quite looking at her. "That author guy just happens to need a crash course in sailboats."

A beat. Then he added, almost like an afterthought, "It's not a big deal."

"Never said it was," she replied in the same tone, looking at him only briefly before turning her attention to the rest of the party.

"Y'know," he said suddenly, sounding miserable now, "this shit is so boring. Can we go somewhere? Where are Jere and Steven...?"

Annie eyed the room before landing on the walking stack of books in the other corner. She nodded to it. "Tweedle Dee and Dum are over there. Where do you want to go, Conrad?"

He did not reply to her, but instead took off towards the rest of the boys, leaving a path behind him for Annie to follow, were she so desperate. Unfortunately, though, desperate she was. She followed his steps and made it to Jeremiah and Steven just as their book tower came toppling down, landing at their feet in a pile that they did not even glance at.

"We're leaving," said Conrad; an instruction, not an offer.

Jeremiah scoffed a laugh. "Yeah. Where? You wanna buy some weed from that guy with the Rainbow Dash tattoo?"

"He got arrested last summer," said Conrad, wiping a hand down his face in deep thought.

"We could go into town," suggested Annie. "Shop or whatever."

"Everything's closed," said Steven. Then he narrowed his eyes and let a smile take over his face; one that told Annie his next idea was going to be a good one. "We could... go to the drive-in."

Immediately, Jeremiah let out a sound of disgust. "Dude, gross. I don't wanna watch Belly hooking up with some kid in the backseat of a minivan."

"Well, me neither," said Steven arguably, "so let's go stop it, dude!"

"Yo, actually," said Conrad, looking amused for the first time all night and speaking as though he came up with the idea himself, "let's go to the drive-in."

"Wait," said Steven, "like.. like really?"

"No," interjected Annie before Conrad could double down. "Belly's on a date. Why do you guys want to sabotage that? Come on, let's go back to the house and watch a movie, or something."

"You know where else we could watch a movie?" said Conrad, his voice lilting with mock innocence.

"The drive-in!" announced Steven and Jeremiah at once, and all three of them started laughing and moving toward the door of the bookstore. Annie sighed; she wondered, momentarily, if she were to stand very still right there and not follow them out to the car, whether or not they would notice she was not there—

"You too, Buzzkill," Conrad called across the store, and Annie turned over her shoulder to see him waiting for her at the door. "Let's go."

The film that was playing that night at the drive-in was an old one, but that was all Annie could register of it as Steven whipped the car through the field toward Cam Cameron and Belly's spot at the front. Annie caught glimpses of Audrey Hepburn every so often, and the film was black and white, but besides this she knew nothing. Well, nothing other than the fact that Belly was about to kiss that boy, until the Land Rover rolled to a stop next to them and interrupted it entirely. Belly muttered something to Cam, and he nodded, then headed out of the car and toward the concessions stand. Belly, however, made a beeline out of Cam's car, toward Annie and the others.

It did not help their case that Steven and Jeremiah were making kissy noises in the front of the car, nor that Annie and Conrad were trying not to smile in the backseat. Belly ripped the Steven's door open ferociously before any of them could prepare themselves.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she demanded, glaring at Steven most of all.

"Uh, just catching the end of our favorite movie," laughed Steven, glancing toward the screen but unable to stop grinning.

"You have no right! You have to go!"

"Oh, Belly, relax," said Jeremiah, "we were just joking around."

"Steven," said Belly, in a much more even tone than before, "if you don't leave, I swear I will send everyone in this car your Dramione fanfic."

This made Conrad, Annie, and Jeremiah laugh harder than before, though Annie watched Steven pale, his smile sinking. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, he spent an entire chapter talking about Draco's wand," said Belly snidely, glaring past Steven and at Jeremiah.

"Bro!" Jeremiah laughed so hard he shook the entire car; Conrad and Annie joined in, but quickly stopped as Belly moved to glare inside the back window.

"Seriously," she said, staring at the two of them, "leave."

Conrad glanced toward Annie, his smile slowly dropping; he read the blankness of her face easily and then turned back to the front, tapping Steven's seat.

"All right, let's go, guys," he said.

"Sorry, Belly," Annie said quietly, though she wasn't sure if Belly could hear her over the boys in the front whining about having to leave.

Still, they tore off and headed back to the house. It was a short ride from the drive-in, but only Jeremiah and Steven said anything during the trip, and it was debating whether Steven should ask Shayla to meet up that night for a beach makeout sesh; Conrad and Annie stayed silent in the backseat. She did not even listen for the final consensus on whether Steven would be seeing Shayla (though she assumed the answer was 'yes'), and only barely tuned in when Jeremiah announced he was going to play video games all night or until his head fell off.

When they pulled into the circle drive in front of the house, Steven was gone as soon as he had parked the car, taking off down the path toward the beach; Jeremiah muttered something about his immaturity, then hopped out of the car and headed inside to an empty house. When Annie got out of the car, however, she was surprised to find Conrad watching her from the other side of the car.

"Why are you so pissed?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" she replied, raising her eyebrows. "Who said I was pissed?"

"Well, you just spent the ten-minute car ride glaring out the window, basically just waiting for someone to ask you what was wrong," he said dryly. "So here. You get what you want."

"I wasn't waiting for anyone to ask me anything."

"Sure looked like it. What, are you upset we ruined your best friend's date? Were you trying to live vicariously through her tonight?"

"What the hell?" demanded Annie, anger screwing up her face and raising her voice. "Why would you even say that?"

"It's a joke. Grow up, Annie."

"I'm sorry I didn't feel like talking in the car," she fired back, "but it was worth it, because I knew this was the kind of response I would get."

"You don't ever feel like talking. Unless it's to Belly."

"Well, she hasn't been a dick to me ever since I got here!"

"Second time tonight you've called me a dick," he pointed out, his voice even, calm. It only angered her further that he was not getting as agitated as she. "Got any other names for me up there, or is it just the one?"

"I'm not gonna stand here and call you a ray of sunshine, that's for sure," she shot. "I'm not a liar."

"No," he agreed. Then he added, "You know you don't have to be here, right?"

Annie blinked. "Excuse me?"

"If you hate it this much. If it's that miserable for you. No one's chaining you to the beach chairs. You could've said no."

"I did say no," she replied, straightening her back. "Susannah RSVP'd for me. Remember?"

"You still got on the train."

"Because my mom guilt-tripped me into it! Because I thought maybe—I don't know," she finished, cutting herself off very quickly and changing her tone of voice even faster.

Conrad caught it, though. His head tilted, and Annie would have been lying if she hadn't seen the slightest of smiles on his face. "Thought maybe what?"

She clenched her jaw. "Not like you care."

"No, go on," he said, crossing his arms now. "I'm all ears."

Annie shook her head, letting out a bitter laugh. As if she would tell him that she had foolishly thought it would feel good to come back; that she would return to Cousins and they would all welcome her with open arms.

"Fuck you," she told him instead. "If you're so all ears, then actually listen to me when I tell you to leave me the hell alone. You're the reason it's so awful to be back, Conrad."

For the first time, Conrad's glare faltered, and something glinted in his eyes that almost made Annie feel bad for saying it. Almost. Then he fixed his face and let out a scoff, looking down to the concrete. His voice was much quieter when he said, "Fuck you, too, then," and he turned heel without another word.

Via Chatter

I apologize so much for the short chapter you guys thank you for bearing with me. at least we saw much annieconrad ship name pending interactions here. They're both so full of pent up emotions bc Conrad knows his mom is sick but can't tell anyone and Annie is pissed at his mom but can't tell anyone and   Wow they just take all of their anger out on each other